EQ+1.+Hall+portfolio


 * Meditation 1:**

We began this course by looking at language development, learning about literacy, the formal structure of language, and how it is acquired. Although we can analyze language on the basis of its structure, acquisition does not proceed by this kind of analysis. Humans develop their language and literacy by exposure. Long before we know what a noun is, we know who Dada is; long before we can read the words printed on the pages, we have a pretty good idea about how a book works. The language development of students is in many ways tied to their academic success.

This can both negatively and positively affect students’ learning. For my part, the environment in which my language developed before formal schooling was filled with books, paper, writing and a strong emphasis on learning. My parents never spoke to me in baby talk, and my mom, doubling as playmate and pedagogue, stayed at home with me almost until I began kindergarten. In this regard, I was extremely privileged. Working in a school, where the vast majority of my students live in poverty, and many students do not speak English at home, I have become familiar with the kinds of linguistic conditions that can inhibit a child’s access to education.

One of the big points of discussion for educators working with students who live in conditions of poverty is the vocabulary gap,disadvantaging them before they even begin. Many factors can affect this discrepancy in vocabulary that appears young, and grows to staggering proportions even before students enter school. Conditions of poverty have a lot of implications and corollary conditions, all of which affect language development and in turn, future learning. Sometimes this means that the students have been raised by just one parent, or maybe they have grown up in an environment filled with other children amongst whom attention must be distributed. Perhaps the parents are unable to spend much free time with their child because they need to work multiple jobs to earn a living wage. Add to this the fact that many students’ parents have not completed high school, or have never been schooled in English. The child’s primary discourse is constructed within their home environment, within the vocabularies of their parents, but often stands at a distance from the secondary, in which they are expected to function once they begin formal schooling. All of this is just to say that the conditions of language development are largely outside of the students’ control, and for many can create barriers to learning and a strong tension between their primary and secondary discourses.

Bilingualism is another circumstance that affects students’ learning, but the effects can play out in many different ways, depending on the education that the bilingual student has received. In my world as a student, the idea of bilingualism has always been somewhat coveted. When I was young it seemed like an unfathomable feat of knowledge and prestige. Growing intimate with the very international oriented Columbia University community, I also saw how for many bilingualism is a mark of some kind of status as “global citizen.” Many of these globetrotters had been educated in English at International schools around the world, and also boasted fluency in several other languages. For them, this bilingualism was largely a product of their internationally oriented upper class circumstances, and in turn worked to reproduce this elite status. The bilingualism lived by my students is rather a product of their families’ relocation to the US from third-world countries. Bilingualism is proven (linguistically) to have neither positive nor negative affects on linguistic aptitude. However, if the student’s education does not use their primary discourse as an asset, if their formal education works to silence this part of their identity, or worse, scorn it, then undoubtedly there will be negative affects on the student’s ability to learn. A child’s ability to learn is intricately related to their emotional well-being, and the way that they are made to feel within the learning environment. If they feel ashamed of their identity, excluded or frustrated, then their learning will suffer. Conversely, if their education works to develop their language from their strengths and accounts for their linguistic identities, they will be able to flourish.


 * Artifacts:**



[|Digital Story]

[|Language in Life blog post]